Japan, N Korea to meet after four years

TOKYO says it will hold talks with North Korea for the first time in four years, seeking to retrieve the remains of Japanese who died in the closing days of World War II.

They will meet in Beijing on August 29 and discuss visits by Japanese to their relatives' burial sites in North Korea.

Tokyo also wants to make some progress on the issue of Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese nationals, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said on Tuesday.

The talks will be the first under Pyongyang's new leader Kim Jong Un.

The Korean Peninsula was under Japan's colonial rule between 1910 and 1945. About 34,600 Japanese died in what is now North Korea.

Japan has collected the remains of about 13,000 people so far.

On Friday, Red Cross officials from Japan and North Korea agreed to ask their governments to hold talks over the repatriation of the remains. It was the first meeting between the two organisations in 10 years.